Dire Blood (#5) (The Descent Series) (12 page)

She pulled her spine sheath on over the shirt she’d borrowed from James like a backpack. Blood was caked on one of the straps and she picked at it with a fingernail. Was it her blood, or was it Yatam’s? It didn’t seem like there was much of a difference anymore.

Elise slipped the falchions into the scabbard as Nathaniel watched.

“Can I have one?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then can I have another weapon?”

She almost said “no” again, but then she stopped to give him a critical look. His hands were smooth, unscarred. That didn’t mean much. Elise had started out unscarred, too.

“Maybe later,” she said. Elise had to let out the buckles around the chest on her sheath to clip it in the front. She was a lot more voluptuous than she used to be, and it didn’t sit right on her back. “What do we need to jump dimensions?”

“A lot of stuff. Some of it might be hard to find, but I can make a list.”

“Then we’d better start getting everything together,” Elise said.

She opened the front door.

Spotlights blazed to life, shining brilliant beams through the windows of the house and blinding her. Elise flung up a hand to shield her eyes. She could just barely make out the shapes of SUVs on the street—at least a half a dozen of them.

Men in black uniforms vaulted over the white picket fence and kneeled on the dead grass to aim at Elise. The nearest one had shaggy hair and an eye patch.

“Freeze!” he shouted, aiming his firearm straight at her chest.

Malcolm had found them.

V

T
he creature calling
herself Elise Kavanagh was a very, very convincing liar.

The Union had captured her at James Faulkner’s house, transported her to the warehouse, and put her in the secure area where they kept semi-corporeal demons: a cavernous cement room with twelve spotlights aimed at a spelled circle. There wasn’t a single shadow in the entire room.

After her hurried exit from the warehouse earlier in the day, Zettel hadn’t been confident that the room would be able to hold her. But she hadn’t escaped, and she had been trying. She had been trying very, very hard.

Zettel didn’t pretend that it made him happy to see the demon fight and fail. He felt a powerful sense of smug satisfaction when she tried to phase out of the lights and stopped with a cry.

“It looks a lot like her,” Malcolm said, leaning in close to the monitors. They were one level above the demon, where they could watch through the six cameras focusing on her from every angle. There was also a switch on the wall that would electrify the floor. It was one of the few ways in which the Union was able to injure an otherwise untouchable demon.

“Shapeshifter?” Allyson asked, drumming a wooden pentagram against her knuckles as she paced.

A soft voice piped up from the back of the room. “That’s not a shapeshifter. That’s Elise.”

Zettel faced the boy that they had seized along with the demon. He was a human child who had refused to identify himself, although he hadn’t shut up on the entire ride out to Fernley about how the Union needed to give his notebook back to him and let him go—or else they would “regret it.”

“How do you know her?” Zettel asked. He had the Book of Shadows that he had confiscated from the child in his back pocket, and hadn’t told Malcolm about it yet.

The boy’s mouth shut. He folded his arms.

Malcolm turned from the monitors and sat down beside the boy like a friendly uncle. “You see that thing on the monitor there? That
looks
like Elise, but it’s not Elise. Whoever you think she is—however you’ve been unlucky enough to get to know her—you’ve made a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake. You have to let us go so she can help me get to Hell.”

“And why would you want to go to Hell?” Malcolm asked.

He folded his arms. “That’s not your business.”

A tinny voice came over the speakers. The demon was speaking.

“Where’s Malcolm?” she asked. “I want to speak with the commander.” She even had Elise’s obnoxiously demanding tone of voice.

Malcolm stared into the monitor. “She knows my name.”

“Demons, sir,” Allyson said. “They know a lot of things.”

But Elise wasn’t done speaking. “I know you’re watching, Malcolm. The Union is always watching. And I also know that I don’t look the way you expect, but I
am
Elise. You need to let me out of here.”

He stood from the chair. His hand hovered near the button for the intercom—not far from the switch to electrify the floor.

“Sir,” Zettel said sharply.

Malcolm’s hand dropped. The expression that crossed his face was a mixture of fear and admiration. “It looks just like her,” he said again.

On the monitors, the demon folded her arms and stared at the ceiling, as though counting silently. “The safeword is ‘cricket,’” she said, as if the words pained her.

Malcolm burst into laughter. Zettel’s hand made it halfway to the gun in his shoulder rig before he realized what Malcolm was doing.

“Oh God, woman. I had forgotten about that.”

“What’s a safeword?” the boy asked.

Malcolm ruffled his hair. “It’s like a password for a lockbox or…something. Anyway, I’m going to go talk with our visitor. Allyson, I want you with me. Gary, keep an eye on the kid.”

“Sir, that’s not a good idea,” Zettel said.

But Malcolm dismissed his worries with a wave of his hand. “I’m just going to talk with her. Allyson won’t let me get eaten. Right, Allyson?”

She gave him a hard stare.

The locks buzzed as they left the room. The door closed, and Zettel was alone with the child.

“I want my notebook,” he said.

Zettel took the Book of Shadows out. “You mean this?” The boy reached for it, but Zettel held it just out of reach. “You said you want to get to Hell.”

“Yeah, and I’m not going to tell you why, so don’t bother asking again.”

“That’s fine. I don’t care.” Zettel pointed at the monitor. “Is that really Elise Kavanagh?” The kid nodded. “Let’s say I believe you. Let’s say that’s Elise Kavanagh, who has magically come back from the dead, and for some reason you two are heading down to Hell. It wouldn’t have anything to do with James Faulkner going on high trial, would it?”

The boy’s mouth dropped open. “You know about that?”

“I have contacts in Dis,” Zettel said. “If you’re traveling with Elise Kavanagh and going to Hell to chase after James Faulkner, then that means that you can only be the prodigal son—Nathaniel Pritchard. Is that right?” He didn’t really need the boy to verify that. The Book of Shadows was more than enough.

But Nathaniel did nod, slowly and reluctantly. “Does everyone know?”

Zettel pulled a chair in front of the boy and straddled it, holding the Book of Shadows in both hands. “Probably not. Malcolm’s an idiot.” And it was a good thing that he was—Nathaniel Pritchard was on the Union’s most wanted list.

If Malcolm realized what a treasure he had stumbled across, the boy wouldn’t have been sitting in one of their observation rooms. He would have been on the first transport to HQ, along with the demon pretending to be Elise.

But Zettel had a much better plan for the boy.

He held out the Book of Shadows. After a moment of hesitation, Nathaniel took it. “Thanks,” he said, hugging the notebook to his chest.

Zettel forced himself to smile, and he tried to make it as friendly as possible. Kids were idiots. “I can break you out of here and send you to Hell. You and Elise. But I need you to do something for me when you get there.”

“What?”

“I need you to give a message to a demon called Judge Abraxas, preferably while he’s visiting the portal room. He’s expecting this note. Allyson has already written it down on a piece of paper for me, so all you have to do is hand it to him. I would do it myself, but I need someone…” Zettel’s smile faded a little. “Someone that the Union won’t notice has gone missing.”

“That sounds dangerous. Why would you help me?”

“Because I need someone brave to deliver this message. Someone crafty.”

That made Nathaniel’s eyes brighten.

Before he could respond, the speakers crackled to life again. Malcolm had entered the secure room with Elise.

Nathaniel frowned. “What about the commander?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Zettel said. “He doesn’t have to know about it—and it would be better if Elise didn’t know about it, either. This is between you and me. A secret.”

“So you’ll let us go. You’ll send the two of us to Hell, and all I have to do is deliver a note to a demon named Abraxas.”

“That’s right.” Zettel held out a hand, offering it to Nathaniel. “So what do you think? Do you want to go to Hell? Are you brave enough to deliver my message?”

Nathaniel considered Zettel’s hand, brow furrowed.

They shook.

T
he light burned.
Elise hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face in her legs to shield her eyes from the glare, but it wasn’t enough. It felt like she was unraveling piece by piece—skull severing from her spine, heart fragmenting into a thousand pieces, skin scorching and shriveling.

She needed the shadows. She needed safety. Her entire body longed for it, and if she could have a moment of shadow—just a moment—she could escape into the pleasant void of darkness.

But there were no shadows. Not with so many spotlights beaming down on her.

Relief flooded over her when a door groaned open a moment later.

Malcolm stepped into the ring of light, gun drawn. It might have been the first time that Elise had seen him without that idiotic grin, and one of the only times she had ever been happy to see him approach. Allyson Whatley stood at his back, a hand on the gun at her hip.

“Hi there,” Malcolm said. “Used the safeword already? Your tolerance has dropped.”

It wasn’t funny. Not when her skin was going to slide off of her bones.

“Get me out of here,” she said through gritted teeth.

“There’s a little problem with that. Namely, the fact that we have your corpse on ice at Union HQ. So forgive me if I’m somewhat skeptical about who you are—even if you do seem to have a weirdly intimate knowledge of Elise’s sex life.”

She couldn’t think of a response. Not when his blood was rushing through his veins, roaring like an ocean in her ears, rolling down the back of her throat. Her gaze fixed on the pulse beneath his jaw.

Hungry…

Elise’s tongue slid out to moisten her lips. All of his sweet, sticky juices were waiting to be tasted. His muscles were vibrating with fear. The joints of his fingers creaked on the gun. And every one of her slight motions made his heart beat a little faster, which sent the rushing blood thumping harder in his system, washing over the tendons and pinkening his flesh and—

“Is it really you, Elise?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She finally remembered how to make her tongue work. “Yes,” she said, and then she added, “As far as I can tell.”

“What happened to you?” Malcolm asked.

If only she had an answer to that. “We can discuss my condition later. Right now, I need you to turn off these lights.”

“Why? So you can escape and steal more Union property?”

Anger flared in her chest, and it pushed away the haze suppressing her senses. Elise’s fingers dug into her shins. Better than digging them into Malcolm’s throat.

“I only took my ring and the swords. Those are my property.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you’re dead, darling,” he said. “The dead can’t have anything.”

She lifted her head and lowered her legs, spreading her arms wide. “Do I
look
dead? Listen—you have to let me go. There’s a problem. When was the last time you were in contact with James?”

“That was the morning after…” Malcolm’s throat worked. “I can’t exactly say the morning after you died, given the circumstances, but—”

“So it was in November,” Elise interrupted.

“It was shortly after he arrived in Sacramento. I called him. He hung up on me after I told him that you—you know, after what happened. Didn’t hear from him again.”

Elise rubbed a hand over her eyes. God, it was so bright. “You don’t know where he went after Sacramento?”

“The Union arranged for him to be transported to Colorado. I know he got on the plane. I know the plane touched down successfully. Beyond that…” Malcolm shrugged. “He missed his transport to the Haven. I assumed that he’d changed his mind.”

Elise didn’t get a chance to respond. Allyson shifted in the back of the room, putting a hand to her ear, as though listening to the earpiece. After a moment, she said, “Yes, sir,” and then, “Very well, sir.”

Malcolm glanced at her. “What is it, Allyson?”

“Just control checking in with us,” she said, and even though her face and voice were smooth, there was a spike in her heart rate that said she was lying.

Malcolm didn’t pick up on it. He faced Elise again. “I can’t let you go, darling.”

But Elise wasn’t listening to him—she was watching as Allyson drew her gun behind Malcolm, gripped it by the muzzle, and raised it over her head.

Allyson whipped her pistol across the back of Malcolm’s skull.

Elise saw the damage unfold the instant it happened, as though in slow motion: the way the brain bounced against the inside of his skull, the rupture of minor vessels, the sloshing of fluid. She saw a jump in his thoughts, and then total failure.

His mind blanked. Malcolm collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

“Get up,” Allyson told Elise, holstering her gun again. The spotlights turned off at once, as though a switch had been flipped in another room. It took all of her concentration to hold her skin against the muscles and keep from vanishing into the sudden darkness.

“Why did you do that to Malcolm?” she asked. She was standing, but she didn’t remember getting to her feet. All it took was a thought, and she had phased through shadow to the witch’s side.

“Who cares? Just be grateful that we’re getting your ass out of here.”

The door opened again, and Zettel appeared on the other side. He was a squat, ugly ape of a man, and he was followed closely by Nathaniel, who was still dwarfed by his camel jacket, still holding onto his Book of Shadows. Strange, powerful relief swept over Elise at the sight of the boy.